Reagan's hometown mourns

DIXON, Ill. (AP) Residents in this small town, where a young Ronald ``Dutch'' Reagan grew up and became a local legend by saving dozens of lives as a teenage lifeguard on the Rock River, remembered their native son Saturday as a hero who never lost his small-town values.

In Dixon, where Reagan attended church and graduated from Dixon High School, residents said it is likely to be a somber time even though Reagan's death has long been anticipated.

``He was our hero, he was our hometown boy made good,'' said Wanita Trader, the chairman at the First Christian Church, which Reagan attended as a young man. Trader said she met Reagan when she was 12. ``At the church we feel that we nurtured a president and we are pretty proud of the fact.''

Reagan died Saturday in California, nearly 10 years after he announced he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. He was 93.

Richard Herbon, the former commander of the American Legion Post 12 in Dixon, was emotional Saturday after hearing of Reagan's death. He said the town of 16,000 residents was ``gonna be in total shock.

``But they're also going to recuperate and honor him like nobody's been honored,'' Herbon said.

Signs of Reagan's Dixon roots abound in this town about 100 miles west of Chicago, including his boyhood home, which is a federal historic site.

Ken and Marilyn Knotts, both wearing shirts with American flags, placed two roses under a statute of Reagan in a small park next to the house.

``He was one of my heroes,'' said Marilyn Knotts, 34. ``He was probably the only president we've ever had who made me proud to be an American.''

A 92-mile commemorative trail, dedicated in 2000 by Reagan's late daughter Maureen, starts in downtown Dixon and traces the footprints of Reagan's formative years though several small prairie towns and ends in Eureka, where Reagan attended Eureka College.

Reagan, a 1932 graduate of the small liberal arts school, returned to the campus in 1982 to make a speech in which he called for the Soviet Union to engage in strategic arms reduction talks. The speech is regarded as a key moment in the beginning of the end of the Cold War era.

``The leadership he provided is rare even among presidents and is something that doesn't come along very often,'' Eureka College President Paul Lister said Saturday.

Dixon Mayor Jim Burke said he expects the town to celebrate Reagan's life in the same cheerful way in which Reagan lived.

``A lot of times people are amazed that somebody can grow up in a small community and then go on to really make a mark in the country and on world history,'' Burke said. ``I think it's those small-town things that had a lot of impact on the development of his character and his positive outlook on life.''

Burke said there are some surviving town residents who went to school or played sports with Reagan, although many now are in nursing homes.

One longtime friend is Bill Thompson, who Reagan taught how to swim, and later worked with as a lifeguard. Thompson said he later became Reagan's eyes in Dixon, telling him about who was sick, who was getting married, who passed away.

``I'm so happy he doesn't have to suffer anymore,'' Thompson said. ``He was a wonderful man and a very compassionate person.''

Burke said the town plans a memorial service at Reagan's former church in the next few days.

``The town has a very deep attachment to Reagan, regardless of what his political persuasion was,'' Burke said. ``He is very much admired in this community and he had great attachment to it. He returned here many times.''

Reagan, via ronaldreagan.com, on his Dixon roots.

With nearly ten thousand people, Dixon was more than ten times larger than Tampico. We arrived there in 1920 when I was nine years old, and to me it was heaven.

I think growing up in a small town is a good foundation for anyone who decides to enter politics. You get to know people as individuals, not as blocs or members of special interest groups. You discover that, despite their differences, most people have a lot in common: Every individual is unique, but we all want freedom and liberty, peace, love and security, a good home, and a chance to worship God in our own way; we all want the chance to get ahead and make our children's lives better than our own. We all want the chance to work at a job of our own choosing and to be fairly rewarded for it and the opportunity to control our own destiny.

The dreams of people may differ, but everyone wants their dreams to come true. Not everybody aspires to be a bank president or a nuclear scientist, but everybody wants to do something with one's life that will give him or her pride and a sense of accomplishment. And America, above all places, gives us the freedom to do that, the freedom to reach out and make our dreams come true.

Later in life I learned that, compared with some of the folks who lived in Dixon, our family was "poor." But I didn't know that when I was growing up. And I never thought of our family as disadvantaged. Only later did the government decide that it had to tell people they were poor. When we first moved to Dixon, we lived on the south side of the river. When we could afford it, we moved across the river to a larger house on the north side. As I look back on those days in Dixon, I think my life was as sweet and idyllic as it could be, as close as I could imagine for a young boy to the world created by Mark Twain in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

On the eve of the Fourth of July when I was eleven, I managed somehow to obtain some prohibited fireworks, including a particularly powerful variety of firecracker known as a torpedo. As I approached the Town Bridge that spanned the Rock River one afternoon, I let a torpedo fly against a brick wall next to the bridge. The ensuing blast was appropriately loud, but as I savored it, a car pulled up and the driver ordered me to get inside. I'd been taught not to get into automobiles with strangers, and refused. When he flashed a police badge, I got in the car. Then I made a second mistake: As we started to drive away, I said, "Twinkle, twinkle little star, who in the hell do you think you are?"

At the police station, I was taken in to see the police chief, who I knew spent a lot of time playing pinochle with my father. Of course, I expected leniency, but he promptly called Jack and told him of my infraction and, friendship or not, Jack had to pay a $14.50 fine, which was big money in those days. The police chief took the ban on fireworks seriously and I guess my smart aleck attitude in the car hadn't helped. It took me a lot of odd jobs to pay off my debt to Jack.

I'm sure that the fact our family moved so often left a mark on me.

Although I always had lots of playmates, during those first years in Dixon I was a little introverted and probably a little slow in making really close friends. In some ways I think this reluctance to get close to people never left me completely. I've never had trouble making friends, but I've been inclined to hold back a little of myself, reserving it for myself.

Every summer, a store in Dixon decorated one of its windows with mannequins outfitted with the uniforms of our high school football team and, as I grew up, filling one of those purple and white jerseys became the noblest and most glamorous goal in my life. Our house overlooked the high school playing field and I spent countless afternoons sitting on an earthen ledge watching and hearing the clash of padded bodies butting up against one another and dreaming of the day when I could put on a uniform and join the combat.

In a town like Dixon during the early 1920s, the silent movie was still a novelty, "talkies" hadn't been invented yet, visits by vaudeville troupes were still rare, and television was something you read about in science fiction stories. People had to rely on themselves for entertainment, and at this, my mother excelled. She was a star performer of a group in Dixon that staged what we called "readings": Dixonites would memorize dramatic or humorous passages from famous poems, plays, speeches, or books and deliver them in a dramatic fashion before an audience at church or elsewhere. Whether it was low comedy or high drama, Nelle really threw herself into a part. She loved it. Performing, I think, was her first love.

One day she helped me memorize a short speech and tried to persuade me to present it that evening at a reading, but I resisted. My brother had already given several and had been a hit; in fact, he could sing or dance with the best of them and a lot of people in Dixon thought he'd end up in show business. But I was more shy and told my mother I didn't want to do it. Yet I guess there was something competitive enough in me that made me want to try to do as well as my brother and I finally agreed. Summoning up my courage, I walked up to the stage that night, cleared my throat, and made my theatrical debut. I don't remember what I said, but I'll never forget the response: People laughed and applauded. That was a new experience for me and I liked it. I liked that approval. For a kid suffering childhood pangs of insecurity, the applause was music.

I didn't know it then, but, in a way, when I walked off the stage that night, my life had changed.

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